The Winchester Mystery House 42:00

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Strange and mysterious, with halls that lead to nowhere and doors that open to everywhere. It could be a maze, a prison, or an artistic endeavor. Was it built as a home for hauntings, or did its owner have a haunted mind? It is waiting in the valley of San Jose, waiting for someone to solve its mysteries. Many have tried, but all have failed.

Welcome to Destination Terror, your passport to the scariest places in the world. From haunted hotels to locations of unexplained creature sightings, we will travel to places that will provide excitement, adventure and horror. Today we are discussing the Winchester Mystery Mansion, the fascinating yet bewildering creation of Automatic Firearms heiress Sarah Winchester.

So if you are into travel and all things scary, listen close and you might just discover your next exciting adventure destination. But hopefully, not your final destination. Destination Terror is an EerieCast original podcast hosted by me, Carmen Carrion.

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featuring allegedly true and terrifying stories that happened on the job. This narrative was inspired by a true story. There once was a petite young woman born to a family that had struggled and worked hard to achieve success. Her name was Sarah Lockwood, but her family and friends knew her as Sally, nicknamed for her paternal grandmother, Sally Pardee Goodyear, who died just a few months before Sarah was born.

By the time Sarah was 10 years old, her father had worked his way from managing a bathhouse to owning his own successful carpentry business. Leonard and his wife made sure that all their children were well educated and cultured, and that included Sarah. By the time she finished school, Sarah was fluent in four languages and proficient in musical composition. She was an all-around excellent student.

Sarah fell in love with a childhood friend that she had met at church where their families both attended. His name was William Winchester. William's family was much more successful than her own, and their parents were good friends, making the couple a great match. Sarah was all set for a fairytale-type lifestyle when the couple said their vows in 1862. Sarah was only 23 years old, and already she felt on top of the world.

But sadly, that feeling would only last for a short time. She woke to the warm morning sun shining through the stained glass window, creating a rainbow across the white sheets. The sun was playing a trick because outside the world was covered in a beautiful white blanket of fresh winter snow. Excited to start her day, Sarah tossed the sheets aside and flung her legs to the side of the bed. Thanksgiving was one of her favorite holidays.

She loved heading the kitchen staff in the preparations for the large meal that her and William's family shared together every year since their marriage. But this morning, Sarah didn't make it far across the room before she was overcome with nausea and had to make a quick detour to the powder room. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, Sarah pressed a cold rag to her face. For a moment, she pondered the bad luck to wake up sick on Thanksgiving morning.

She was sad, but only for a moment, until she suddenly realized that this could very well be good news. Washing up, she smiled at her reflection in the mirror, and that is when she knew without a doubt she was going to be a mother. It was her secret to keep for now, but if all went well, it could make an amazing Christmas announcement for the entire family.

She only had six weeks to wait until she could share her news with the world. Sarah's pregnancy went well until her first trimester, when she began to have nightmares. It all started one day after she accidentally overheard William discussing business with his father in the parlor. She could smell the smoky and sweet aroma of tobacco, leather, wood, and old library books wafting through the air from the door that was ajar.

She didn't mean to eavesdrop. She was only going to close the door, because the normally pleasant scent seemed to make her lightheaded these days. She could hear her father-in-law, Oliver Winchester, chuckle. "Yes, William, this war is going to ensure that even your grandchildren are wealthy." She could hear him pat her husband firmly on the back as he spoke. Quietly, she eased the door shut, sure not to make a sound.

She was thinking of all the young men, fathers, brothers and husbands who would not be coming home after the war, and how many, even most of them, would fall from the shot of a Winchester gun. Sarah wondered if she should feel guilt for her stake in the production of a weapon that took lives, but shockingly, she did not, at least not this early in her life.

Sarah rubbed her round stomach as a tiny foot pushed from the inside. She smiled contentedly, satisfied with the knowledge that her child and her future grandchildren would have a financially secure life. It was on that same night that Sarah awoke screaming and covered in sweat. She had a dream that she was lost in the woods and could hear gunfire all around her.

She pushed her way through a heavy thicket and emerged into a field covered in a heavy mist. As she made her way through the waist-high grass, holding a protective hand across her stomach, the gunfire grew louder and she could hear tiny bits of metal buzzing past her head. It seemed to be coming from every direction. She began to run, but was slowed by the heavy burden of the child she was carrying inside her.

Finally, she made it to the edge of the field when she felt a searing pain enter through her back and extend to her stomach. Sarah felt the hand she held across her midsection grow wet, and she looked down. She could see blood trickling out through a hole the size of a silver dollar. She covered the hole with her hand, but the blood just poured faster, escaping through her fingers. Opening her mouth, she screamed, but no sound came out.

When she woke, she was sitting upright in her bed and William was holding her. She rocked back and forth crying until the shock of the dream wore off. Many restless nights followed, until finally Sarah had other thoughts to distract her as she became a new mother. One month later, during a warm June evening, Sarah gave birth to her daughter, Annie. The baby girl was perfect in every way, and she seemed to make Sarah and William's lives complete.

but their joy was short-lived because within the first week they noticed something was wrong with their baby. Annie cried more than she slept and she seemed to be constantly hungry as if she was never satisfied. Instead of growing into a chubby rounded baby, she began to wither and grow weak. Their daughter lived for only four weeks before she starved to death from a rare disease that no one at the time understood.

And what Sarah never understood was why her. What had she ever done to deserve to lose the one thing she valued more than her own life? Feelings of guilt are expected when a parent loses a child. As a parent, our job is to protect them from harm. And when we fail to do so, even if it's not within our power, we feel that we have failed. Sarah was no different than any other parent.

She was haunted by her own guilt and loss.

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This unusually large house in San Jose, California, is not necessarily considered haunted, but instead is dubbed a mystery. Steeped in myth, rumors, and hearsay, the house has many versions of its story to be told. In 1866, widow Sarah Winchester, at the age of 47, moved from New Haven, Connecticut to San Jose, California to start a new life.

She purchased a small eight-room farmhouse and started a small renovation project that would take 36 years. The world's longest renovation project cost $5.5 million in the money of the time. By the time Sarah finally stopped the renovations, the Winchester mansion was a modern marvel, with many works that were before their time. The mansion boasted indoor plumbing, multiple elevators, a hot shower, and central heating.

It had over 160 rooms and 40 bedrooms, 10,000 windows, and even two basements. These are not the only things that make the house unique. Not all the 2,000 doors can be walked through. One door leads to an 8-foot drop to a kitchen sink, another to a 15-foot drop into the bushes in the garden below. Some of the staircases lead straight to ceilings.

Expensive stained glass windows were installed in places where they would get no light. And there are nine secret rooms that have secret passages leading to them. Sarah Winchester was trapped in one of these rooms during the earthquake of 1906 and afterwards had it boarded up for good. If you want to venture and attempt to understand the mystery first, you must try to understand the Madam of the House. This is Sarah Lockwood Pardee Winchester's story.

Sarah was an ordinary, although wealthy woman. She was born in New Haven, Connecticut to upper-class parents in 1839. Sarah enjoyed the rewards of a luxurious life. Her father was Leonard Pardee, a successful carriage manufacturer, and her mother was popular in the upper-class society of New Haven. The family made sure that their seven children were cultured.

Sarah learned four languages as a child and was admitted to the Young Ladies Collegiate Institute at Yale. Her high-ranking status in society put Sarah in the perfect position for a marriage to an equally privileged man. Because her family was acquainted with several other affluent families through their church, by the time Sarah was of age to marry, her parents already had her future husband in mind.

They made sure it was a man that could ensure that their daughter would be taken care of for her entire life. That man was William Wirt Winchester. William was the only son of firearms manufacturer Oliver Winchester, making him heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The company made its name as one of the first to mass produce firearms with the ability to fire multiple rounds without reloading.

The most famous of these guns was an 1873 model popular with settlers used during the indigenous American wars. Due to the massive sales and increasing popularity, the Winchester family amassed a fortune. William and Sarah Winchester married in September 1862. During the marriage, William worked as treasurer for his family's company alongside his father. Four years into the marriage, Sarah gave birth to a daughter named Annie Pardee Winchester.

Tragedy struck just 40 days after their daughter's birth. Annie died of marasmus, a rare disease in which the body suffers malnutrition due to the inability to metabolize proteins. Many accounts say that Sarah never completely recovered from the loss of her infant daughter. Even though William and Sarah remained married, she became increasingly distressed, often over the source of the company's income, which supplied her own wealth.

She felt that the company profited from death, and that was something she couldn't cope with. It seemed that life could not get any worse for Sarah, but sadly, it did. William's father Oliver died in 1880, leaving the company in the hands of his only son. Then, just a year later, William himself suddenly fell ill and died from tuberculosis, leaving everything to Sarah.

Sarah found herself in possession of a $20 million fortune, which would be almost $500 million today. She also had a 50% stake in the Winchester Arms Company. Sarah never took up a position in the company, but her stake alone left her with a continuous income of $1,000 a day. That would be $26,000 today. Now the story gets tricky from here, because it is hard to tell myth from fact.

People like to believe in strange things, and when they don't understand them, they make up stories. In a very short period of time, Sarah lost her daughter and her husband, but gained a fortune large enough to make her one of the richest people in the world. But what would Sarah do with a fortune that she believed was blood money? A fortune that was built on the untimely deaths of thousands of people.

It is said that in her search to figure out what to do with the money, she sought out the help of a psychic medium in Boston, a few hours north of her home in New Haven. Sarah told the medium about the guilt she felt for deaths of people who had fell victim to the Winchester guns. The medium, after hearing Sarah's story, told her that she would be tormented unless she appeased the spirits of these victims.

He also told her that the only way to do this was to move west and build a house for the lost souls. Sarah was shaken and made it her mission to follow the medium's advice in order to prevent eternal damnation. It wasn't long after this until Sarah moved to San Jose and purchased the unfinished farmhouse in Santa Clara Valley. Sarah chose not to hire an architect, but instead hired a team of carpenters.

She had them build directly onto the farmhouse at her instruction. In time, the rundown farmhouse became a seven-story mansion. According to local legend, Sarah was visited by spiritualists and mediums on a regular basis from across the city. She invited them to direct her on how to best appease the spirits.

The reconstruction of the mansion was an ongoing cycle that never ceased, as she was continuously adding new additions and adjustments. It has been said that to confuse any ghosts hoping to contact her directly, Sarah added several unusual touches to the house. Therefore, many of the staircases end abruptly, doorways open to several story drops, and hallways appear to go nowhere before circling back on themselves.

All of this makes a memorable explanation for the confusing strangeness of Sarah Winchester's mansion. The problem is that as far as historical records go, there is almost no proof of any of it. Popular belief is that she moved for supernatural reasons. But in truth, she most likely moved to be closer to her family. Her brother-in-law was the president of Mills College and two of her sisters already lived in the Bay Area.

Some historians believe she initially bought the San Jose farmhouse with an eye for expansion. As the family's wealthiest member, she could afford to build a place to house them all. Sarah actually hired several architects, but could not see eye to eye with them, and one after another they parted ways. But Sarah had no professional training in architecture, so things didn't go smoothly. "I am constantly having to make an upheaval for some reason.

Winchester wrote to her sister-in-law in 1898, "For instance, my upper hall which leads to the sleeping apartment was rendered so unexpectedly dark by a little addition that after a number of people had missed their footing on the stairs, I decided that safety demanded something to be done." Her reasons for the vast continuing expansion were not spiritual but most likely arose because she made mistakes in her planning.

It didn't help Sarah's reputation that she was naturally reserved. Instead of spending time at charity functions and social events, she chose to spend time with her close family, some of which occasionally lived with her. In absence of her own voice in society, the locals began to gossip about her. By 1895, the house was large enough to draw the speculating eyes of the community.

The February 24, 1895 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article that almost single-handedly laid the foundation for the Winchester Mystery House legend. "The sound of the hammer is never hushed," it reported. The reason for it is in Ms. Winchester's belief that when the house is entirely finished, she will die. The story was so popular that it was picked up by newspapers around the state. But the story is suspicious at best.

First, the hammers did stop from time to time. In a letter to her family, Sarah claimed that she had stopped construction for the summer because it was too hot to work. "I became rather tired and worn out, and dismissed all the workmen to take such rest as I might through the winter," she wrote. Now, both the spiritual version and the so-called true version of Sarah's motivation to build the mysterious mansion seem to be missing something.

If you visit the house, now called the Winchester Mystery House, you will see that its design is quite unexplainable. Mystery is a well-earned middle name for this San Jose Victorian mansion that has been the source of many ghostly tales. But there have been many employees and visitors who have claimed to have real-life encounters and spectral sightings.

Several employees and a few visitors claim to have crossed paths with Clyde, a mustached man sometimes seen pushing a wheelbarrow in the basement or trying to repair the fireplace in the ballroom. He's been described to management roughly like this: "We really liked the actor who was repairing the ballroom fireplace, wearing white overalls and a Victorian boater hat." "Huh? We didn't hire an actor."

There are also the gentle tugs of shirts and skirts during tours, and the report from long-time maintenance worker Denny. One crisp morning after entering the water tower, he heard the patter of footsteps above. He ascended to let the trespasser know the three-story structure was off-limits, but the footsteps always seemed to be one step ahead of him and one floor above him. His search culminated on the roof, with no one in sight.

Houdini visited the house in 1924 during his nationwide tour to debunk spiritualism, and ever since other experts have followed. Winchester Mystery House has thrown out the welcome map for paranormal investigator Zach Bagans of Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures, noted psychic Sylvia Brown, TK, and famed medium James Van Praeg, who channeled Sarah at a seance dinner.

He claimed that she expressed happiness that the house had so many visitors. The Winchester Mystery House has never been a secret. But when the film Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built was released in 2018, it fueled the curiosity of many more supernatural enthusiasts.

The film stars Helen Mirren as heiress Sarah Winchester with Jason Clarke and Sarah Snook, and follows Sarah Winchester as she is haunted by spirits inside her mysterious mansion in 1906. The Winchester Mystery House is open to the public and offers tours and activities for curious guests. You can purchase tickets in person or online if you want to explore the house or the gardens. Be aware, though, that the guided mansion tour is not wheelchair accessible.

Sarah Winchester did not plan that far ahead. You can, however, take the ADA tour, which is available to guests with mobility issues. This tour offers a video tour of the mansion and a self-guided tour of the garden. If travel is completely out of the question, there is one more option. The Winchester Mystery House website offers an immersive 360-degree tour. Some of the best traveling is done in our imaginations.

Sarah Winchester did not build this home to keep it a secret. I believe that she knew that someday it may draw visitors from around the world. If you are looking for a mind-blowing experience, this could be your perfect destination.

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Burdened with sadness at the loss of her daughter and later her husband, Sarah grew lonely and withdrawn. She no longer attended social events, and she left the running of the Winchester business to the executives, choosing instead to live her life in quiet solitude. But the memories proved to be too much, and eventually Sarah decided she needed a fresh start in a new place.

Hoping that the nightmares that plagued her would stay where they started, Sarah left her home in New Haven, Connecticut and moved out west to San Jose, California. There she bought an eight-room farmhouse. The farmhouse was a palette to Sarah. She saw it not for what it was but for what it could be. It fueled her imagination and filled her days with thoughts of creation instead of the devastation she had left behind.

During the day, she planned new designs and extensions, but at night, her nightmares continued to plague her. Each nightmare had begun to form in a new room each time, many filled with the cries of her daughter that she could never seem to find, and others with the smell of pipe smoke, leather, and William's laughter. Sarah began to use the dreams to design the rooms in her new home, each one built to house a nightmare in hopes that it would stay imprisoned there.

but the nightmares continued. Rumors began to build amongst the neighbors about the wealthy widow claiming that she was building the strange house to collect the ghosts of the ones killed by the rifles made by her company. They claimed she employed psychics and held seances to speak to the dead. The locals could not be more far from the truth with their stories. It was ghosts that haunted Sarah, but not of the fallen men and women dead from gunshot wounds, but of her own loved ones.

Carl Henson was only eight years old when his father went to work for Sarah Winchester as a carpenter. Sarah Winchester was an aging widow, but his father took an instant liking to the kind yet intelligent woman, and she to him as well. After Raymond, Carl's father, introduced his wife Helen to the lady of the house, the two women became quick friends.

Sarah hired Helen to keep house and eventually Raymond and Helen and their young son moved into the Winchester house and made it their home as well. While Raymond was leading the team of contractors to work on the new additions, Helen took care of the upkeep of the house. Young Carl spent his days exploring and playing in the many rooms of the large, continually growing house, surrounded by the constant noise of construction.

Carl woke up early and ate his breakfast, with his mother scolding him to slow down. He was excited. He had made a new friend and he couldn't wait to meet her in their secret hideout. He had been exploring one of the upstairs hallways when he heard giggling coming through one of the walls. He put his ear to the wall and the giggling stopped. Stepping back, he scratched his head before making a fist, giving the wall a few knocks.

He only had to wait a few seconds before the knock was returned from the other side. He tried the rooms to either side of the wall and found nothing. That is when he realized that there was some space unaccounted for. Walking back out into the hallway, he put his ear to the wall again and heard a young girl's voice. "You have to push on the wall and the door will open."

Carl pushed on the center of the wall and nothing happened. So he tried both sides, and finally the wall began to slide like a revolving door, revealing a small room. Stepping inside, Carl noticed that it looked like a sitting room with two armchairs, a table with a lamp, and a bookcase. He jumped when a little girl peeked around from the side of one of the chairs. She looked to be a couple of years older than him, but it was hard to tell because her features were gray and colorless.

When she stood, he noticed that she was at least a head taller than him. She took a step towards him and offered her hand and her name. "Hi, I'm Annie. What's your name?" He smiled at her. "I'm Carl. I just moved here." "Do you live here too?" Annie smiled back at him. "Yes, I moved here with my mother. This is her house." Carl frowned and gave her a funny look.

"Are you talking about Miss W? I didn't think she had any kids." Annie laughed at that. "Yes, if you mean Miss Winchester. She is my mother, and she has one child, me." Carl shrugged. It was too complicated to figure out, and he was just happy to have someone to play with. They spent the entire day exploring the house. Annie showed him rooms that he did not even know existed, just like the one where he found her.

The place was very fascinating and was great fuel for the imagination. It was getting late when Carl heard his mother yelling for him to come to dinner, and finally he told Annie he had to go. Hey, but I will see you at dinner, he said, and then with that he turned and ran down the hall without waiting for a reply. Carl found his mother in the dining room setting the table. She crinkled her nose when she saw his dirty face and ordered him to go wash up.

We will be eating with Miss Winchester tonight, and I'm sure she wouldn't want you to show up looking like that. He knew not to argue, so he took off to do as he was told and returned shortly with a squeaky clean face. His mother looked him up and down before nodding with approval and pulling out a chair and directing him to sit. He climbed into the large chair. He wasn't small by any means, but the chairs in this room looked like small thrones. He had never seen anything like it.

He watched as his mother finished setting the table and counted each place setting. He only counted four. "Hey, Mom, I think you missed one." She stopped and looked at her son and then looked at the table. "No, I don't think so." Carl knew better than to argue. It was disrespectful. He would just wait and let her see for herself that she was wrong. There should have been five.

Three for him and his parents, and two for Ms. W and Annie. But there were only four. His father came in as he was finishing up and took his seat. He asked Carl about his day. "I made a new friend. You will get to meet her soon. She showed me how to find the secret passages in the house." Just then Ms. Winchester came in, and Raymond and Carl stood again as she took her seat at the head of the table.

Helen helped the cook place the dinner trays on the table and after the cook left, she took her seat as well. After they bowed their heads in a silent prayer, it was time to eat. But Carl couldn't eat. He was still waiting for his friend who was yet to appear. He wanted to ask, but it wasn't polite for kids to speak at the table unless spoken to. So he sat there with his hands in his lap, hoping someone would ask him a question.

Finally, Ms. W. noticed that he was not eating and looked at him suspiciously. "Young man, are you not going to eat? Surely there is something on this table that appeals to you." Carl took a deep breath, trying to make sure he answered properly. "Yes, ma'am. But may I ask you a question first?" he asked. The older woman looked at him and nodded once in reply. Carl began.

"I was just wondering when Annie would be here. I thought she would be eating with us." Sarah Winchester turned white as the blood drained from her face. Carl watched as the cup the widow had been holding fell from her hand and shattered into pieces on the table, sending hot tea into her lap.

Every adult at the table jumped at once. Helen and Raymond rushed to Ms. Winchester's side. Helen dabbed at the spilled tea with a towel and Raymond began to pick up the broken glass. Carl was shocked and confused, not sure what had triggered the events playing out before him. But he could tell that the lady of the house was more than upset. He sat in silence as his parents ushered her out of the dining room.

Later, he tried to question his parents but was told to never mention Annie again. That was the last evening that they ever tried to share a meal with Ms. Winchester. But even though he was not allowed to talk about Annie, he knew that he could just ask her himself next time he saw her. And see her he did, every day in their secret room, and many nights he would wake to find her sitting by his bed, waiting for him to wake up and go play.

Thank you for joining us to explore the Winchester Mystery House. Be sure to tune in next time as I take you to the Gobi Desert, where rumor has it that a giant worm lurks waiting beneath the sand for its next meal. I'm Carmen Carrion. Remember, you can send me suggestions and stories of haunted places to my email, carmencarrion at gmail.com or follow me on Twitter at Carmen Carrion.

Be sure to check out eeriecast.com for more terrifying podcasts. Until next time, be safe out there, until I see you at our next destination.